Happy life

“ Every lesson of life, wisely read, tells us that we should be happy; that we should seek to be happy from principle, not simply from impulse; that we should make Happiness a great object in life; that our duties, our varied relations to our fellows as friends, as lovers, as companions, as parents, as children; our avocations, our labors, sacrifices, hopes, trials, struggles, should administer to our Happiness. ”

“ I know now what is written on the eternal tablets—to live one’s own life as it is given, in honor, charity, without malice; to seek happiness where it is offered; to share it when possible; to uplift. But, most of all, to be happy and accept happiness as a heavenly gift that is to be shared with as many as possible. ”

“ No wonder it sometimes seems to us that we have forgotten to smile; that our faces are so drawn with the tense struggle of life that we have lost sight of the meaning of happiness. How can we be happy unless we shall set our whole lives in harmony with the things that are fundamental and eternal? ”

“ I defy any one to tell from my appearance that I have not every thing to make me happy. I have much, and I am happy. My little trials are essential to my happiness. They teach me to value the only true sources of enjoyment this life can afford,—the affection of the good, the cultivation of the better feelings of the soul in the service of their Creator, and the joyful hope of a better, purer state of existence. ”

“ When happiness is present, the petty things of life fail to disturb and poison us.
[Pg 71]
Keep Happy. This means living in the higher part of the mind, where the air and light and warmth are greater, and where all good things originate. Keep your thoughts in this happy region of yourself, and you will not only get the right ideas—the ideas that you really need—but you will draw other minds up to the same level.
Keep Happy. The more you insist on—and persist in—keeping happy, the more you will realise and be convinced how absolutely and progressively beneficial Happiness is. ”

“ It is right that people should renew their stock of affection, should see that their hold on the world, on life, is renewed, should feel that fresh claims, for that is a part, and a great part, of happiness, are ready at hand when the old ones disappear. All this is what means happiness, and you know that the one thing I want in the world is that you should be happy. ”

“ Now all my life I have believed that we are intended to be happy, that joy is of all gifts the most divine. And when I left London, abandoned my career, such as it was, I did so because I intended to devote my life to the cultivation of joy, and, by continuous and unsparing effort, to be happy. ”

“ But slowly as the recovery came, it did come; and the more you see of us, the clearer it will be to you that we are happy. That we live amidst beauty without any fear of becoming effeminate; that we have plenty to do, and on the whole enjoy doing it. What more can we ask of life? ”

“ Contrary to the prevalent impression, I therefore deem that, to reflect much upon it, is one of the wisest means in the pursuit of happiness. The first analysis of reflection, it is true, dispels the charm with which youth invests existence. It forces the conviction upon us, that the pleasures of life are less durable, and its forms more numerous and prolonged, than we had anticipated. ”

“ Is it, perchance, that as one looks for his joy in this thing, another in that, all agree in their desire of being happy, as they would agree, if they were asked, that they wished to have joy, and this joy they call a happy life? Although, then, one obtains the joy by one means, another by another, all have one end, which they strive to attain, namely, joy. ”

“ The place, in which the only satisfactions of life, that are worth any serious pursuit, are to be found, is within the domestic walls. Honor, fame, wealth, luxury, literary distinction, everything is extrinsic, and hollow, everything the mere mockery and shadow of joy, but the comfort of a quiet and affectionate home. Whoever does not share this faith with me, will hardly be enlightened to the true sources of enjoyment by any lucubrations of mine. ”

“ "Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched." ”

“ That thou so long unto thy life must cling,
Because I gave thee such a welcoming?
I called thee king of all felicity,
I praised thee that thou broughtest joy so nigh;
Thine hours are turned to years, thou wilt not die;
O day so longed for, would that thou wert gone!
The Maidens.
The light fails, love; the long day soon shall be
Nought but a pensive happy memory
Blessed for the tales it told to thee and me.
How hard it was, O love, to be alone.
LOVE FULFILLED.
Hast thou longed through weary days
For the sight of one loved face? ”

“ Let us prepare for a life of rational happiness. I do not expect or wish for a life of pleasure! May we be happy and useful and successful, and each be an ornament in society and gain the respect and confidence of all with whom we may be connected. ”

“ “Each life unfulfilled, you see, It hangs still, patchy and scrappy; We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired—been happy.”
But his life would not be unfulfilled. ”

“ Not if one could insure the same frame of mind in which first he tasted the enjoyment. I, for instance, like what is called the world very much. I like society, life, and gayety. I like the attentions, I like the flatteries one meets with, but if I could be always as happy, always as tranquil as we have felt since we came here, I 'd be quite willing to sign a bond to live and die here. ”

“ Keep Happy, and the things that would, in the ordinary way, loom large and important, and upset our peace and poise, either fade into nothingness or else become obviously useful as training us to play the game of life. ”

“ Such is the practical creed of the great mass, with whom you will be associated in life. I, on the contrary, think entirely with the French philosopher, whose precepts you are about to read, that this general persuasion is palpably false and fatal; that much suffering may be avoided, and much enjoyment obtained by following rules, and pursuing happiness by system; that I have had the fortune to meet with numbers, who were visible proofs that men may learn how to be happy. ”

“ In fine, it is too true that pleasure may be found in the most capricious aberrations, the most shameful vices, and the most atrocious crimes.
It will be seen that I abandon most of the trite declamation against ambition. I touch not on its long inquietudes, its inevitable torments, exacerbated a hundred fold, if their victim preserve degrees of mental elevation and remains of moral sentiment. Life passes pleasantly among men who have just views, upright hearts and frank manners, the true elements of greatness and enjoyment. ”

“ But that also, with its assured belief in heaven and hell as two countries in which to live, has gone, and now we do, both in word and in deed, believe in the continuous life of the world of men, and as it were, add every day of that common life to the little stock of days which our own mere individual experience wins for us: and consequently we are happy. ”

“ The disappointed, who affirm that the earth offers no happiness, the gloomy, who view life as a place of penance, [198] austerity and tears, the dissipated and voluptuous, who seek only pleasure, and whose doctrine is, that life offers no happiness but in unbridled indulgence, the ambitious, who consider happiness to consist only in wealth, power and distinction, and a very numerous class, who have no object in view, but to vegetate through life by chance, constitute the great mass of mankind. ”

“ I yield entire faith to the doctrine before you, that, estimate these evils as highly as you may, a balance of enjoyment may still be struck in favor of life. I do not doubt, that more than one half the suffering and sorrow which every individual endures is simply of his own procuring, and not only that it might have been wholly avoided, but that positive enjoyment might have been substituted in its place. ”

“ Such considerations, I hope, will induce you to exercise cautious examination of this subject, if either of you should ever be placed in circumstances to contemplate assuming the duties of the wedded life. If you do not, you will have cast the pursuit of happiness upon the die of chance at the very outset of your career. ”

“ “Happy, Muriel? No, not happy. Your aim is wrong. There is no such thing as happiness. Life bends joy and pain, beauty and ugliness, in such a way that no one may isolate them. No one should want to. Perfect joy, or perfect pain, with no contrasting element to define them, would mean a monotony of consciousness, would mean death. ”

“ Yet it is not the pride of conceit, the pride of power, of possession, of superiority, but the wholesome, joyous, happy sense of a full-flowing life, every good channel of which is healthily full—healthily flowing to healthy ends. That, to me, is serenity. The self-consciousness that "all things are working together for good," and working to the full. There is no walking delegate to dictate the length of the hours such a life shall work, or live. It lives for the very joy of mere living, and living means working, giving, doing for others, more than for self. ”

“ When things seem amiss, then is the time to give all your thoughts the upward [Pg 38] direction. Keep happy. Hold on to Happiness, not like grim death but like irrepressible life.
Remember that “everything serves some useful purpose.” If you refuse to keep happy, at least determine to find out the useful purpose. But, as soon as you can, come back to yourself, and keep happy.
Help Others
Help others. This is the old and ever new way. As Maeterlinck says:
“Before we can bring happiness to others, we must first be happy ourselves. Nor will happiness abide within us unless we confer it on others. ”

“ In looking round a circle of individuals, ridiculously called the world, we shall find happy family establishments less rare than we imagine. Besides, it would be absurd to count among unhappy unions, all those which are not wholly exempt from stormy passions. Not only is perfect felicity a chimerical expectation on the earth, but we meet with many people who would be fatigued into ennui in a perfect calm, and who require a little of the spice of contrariety to season the repast of life. ”

“ How can they realize that the good of life consists in being, and not in having? that we are worth what our knowledge, love, admiration, hope, faith, and desire make us worth? They will not perceive that happiness and unhappiness are conditions of soul, and consequently that the wise, the loving, and the strong, what [Pg 161] ever their outward fortune, are happy, while the ignorant, the heartless, and the weak are miserable. To know ourselves, we should seek to discover the kind of life our influence tends to create. ”

“ He may well be content, let others regard him as they may; for he has put in requisition the best wisdom of life. No one maxim, especially, ever included more important and practical truth, than that, to be happy, we must assiduously train ourselves to retain through life a keen and juvenile freshness of sensibility to enjoyment, and must early learn to anticipate the effect of experience and years in cultivating a stern indifference, a strong spirit of endurance, and unshrinking obtuseness to pain. ”

“ Severe strictures have, also, been passed upon this maxim. I well know, that the common rules proposed to the young, in commencing their serious and more advanced studies, lead them to look forward to happiness, as a garland suspended from the goal, an object only in remote expectation, the fruition of which should be hoped for only at a period of life, when few are capable of enjoyment, even if the means were in their power. To calculate on comfort and repose, early in life, has been considered as a sort of effeminate weakness. ”

“ Happiness tends to Health, in its various aspects:—
Enjoyment of life and of all that life brings us;
Energy—for Health gives a tonic without reaction;
Economy—for, when we are happy, we need neither drugs nor stimulants nor narcotics nor holidays; Happiness saves vast stores of precious power, both physical and mental ”

“ He probably has no eye save for the contrasts which he experiences to his daily life, of scene, air, and vitality, but these will certainly infect him with a healthier love of life than is enjoyed by those who live amongst them and see them come and go. ”

“ “'I have been very happy—very fortunate—very proud,' she went on. 'Too fortunate. Too happy for a little while. And now I am unhappy for—for life.'
“She stood up; ”

“ How different the cheery radiancies of the happy man—like Dickens's Cheeryble Brothers—who gives out breezy healthfulness on every hand. The clasp of the hand radiates physical vigor that in itself is a tonic to the body; their bright and cheerful words brace up the mind; and their God-like optimism and altruism lift up the soul so that—above the mists and fogs of mortal error—we see God and enjoy His smile.
Some persons radiate selfishness. ”

“ I have already lived much, yet it seems to me that I have but just now come to the knowledge of what makes happiness. A sweet, tranquil life, in our retired corner, with the possibility of doing good to those to whom it is so easy to do it, and who, nevertheless, are so little used to it; then work,—work, whence, you know, some profit always springs; recreation, also, nature, books, music, the affection of some congenial friend; there is my happiness, a happiness higher than I ever dreamed of. ”

“ But the general good by which these actions are tested is something quite distinct from happiness, though it undoubtedly has a close connection with it. It is no kind of happiness, high or low, in particular; it is simply those negative conditions required equally by every kind. If we are to be happy in any way, no matter what, we must of course have our lives, and, next to our lives, our health and our possessions secured to us. ”